Social Media Day comes to Miami: Here’s what we learned

It’s hard to believe that just over a decade ago, Facebook didn’t exist. Now it’s hard to imagine life without it. And over the years, networks like Instagram, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn have joined the scene and gained immense popularity.

For Mashable’s fifth annual Social Media Day on June 30, the company joined forces with SurveyMonkey to find out just how influential these tools are in our personal and professional lives – and the numbers speak for themselves.

Mashable spoke with more than 4,700 people from 120 countries about their online habits. Of that group, more than three quarters admitted to using between two and five social media networks every week, with Facebook being the favorite. Ironically, though, Facebook came in first in another other category – “Which social network could you live without?” Nearly 20% said they could.

The internet giant held a conference right here in Miami on social media day, but don’t worry if you missed out, Soundbytes readers. Here are our three top takeaways we learned at the conference:

  • Video, video video: With smartphones making it easier all the time to take photos and videos, it’s become more and more important to post videos to gain engagement from users. An astonishing 85% of people view videos online
  • Mobile-friendly: Again, we can blame the smartphone. More people than ever before are now accessing social media via their mobile devices. Keep in mind as you post to make it easy to view and read on the small screen.
  • Engagement matters: Posting on social media is not enough — the content which you post must engage users by encouraging them to like, share and comment. Something as simple as “Facebook candy” — text over an image — can be shared thousands of times if viewers can identify with it.

If you still want to learn more, you can search for #SMDayMIA, the designated hashtag, to find comments from everyone who attended. You can learn more stats on social media engagement from Mashable’s video below:

You can also read more at Mashable.

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